Could a human enter a black hole to study it?

#1

Post by othello » Fri, Jul 25, 2025, 8:10 AM UTC

Could a human enter a black hole to study it?
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Re: Could a human enter a black hole to study it?

#2

Post by seanhunter » Fri, Jul 25, 2025, 10:51 AM UTC

Betteridge’s law of headlines says that any headline that ends with a question mark can be answered with the word “no”.

Could a human enter a black hole to study it? No. Like obviously not.

Nevertheless, it’s a very fun and interesting article. Great quotes include:

   This implies … that the black hole’s pull on a person will differ by a factor of 1,000 billion times between head and toe, depending on which is leading the free fall. …

   The person would experience spaghettification, and most likely not survive being stretched into a long, thin noodlelike shape.

Re: Could a human enter a black hole to study it?

#3

Post by karmakaze » Fri, Jul 25, 2025, 4:36 PM UTC

seanhunter wrote: post #2

Betteridge’s law of headlines says that any headline that ends with a question mark can be answered with the word “no”. Could a human enter a black hole to study it? No. Like obviously not. Nevertheless, it’s a very fun and interesting article. Great quotes include: This implies … that the black hole’s pull on a person will differ by a factor of 1,000 billion times between head and toe, depending on which is leading…

Obviously yes (if you think about event horizons of different sized ones).

> there is a [...] catch: A human can do this only if the respective black hole is supermassive and [...]

Re: Could a human enter a black hole to study it?

#4

Post by positr0n » Fri, Jul 25, 2025, 4:49 PM UTC

seanhunter wrote: post #2

Betteridge’s law of headlines says that any headline that ends with a question mark can be answered with the word “no”. Could a human enter a black hole to study it? No. Like obviously not. Nevertheless, it’s a very fun and interesting article. Great quotes include: This implies … that the black hole’s pull on a person will differ by a factor of 1,000 billion times between head and toe, depending on which is leading…

> Could a human enter a black hole to study it? No. Like obviously not.

That is incorrect. With a large enough black hole the event horizon is not a significant feature at human scale. Spaghettification will not occur. A human could easily dip inside the event horizon without damage.

Though of course once you go in there's no going back out!